Random mumblings of ARM/AArch64 developer.

I am tired of Raspberry/Pi

Please people… stop asking me about Raspberry/Pi. I do not want it, do not plan to buy one (when they will be finally available for normal people) and for sure do not plan to support it.

Raspberry/Pi may look as interesting hardware to you but it does not have to mean same to others. Want to run desktop? 256MB of memory means really crippled one (last time I saw this amount of RAM in desktop computer right before opening it to add 512MB stick). Sure, for 25-35 USD it is proper range as memory is probably the most expensive part. Device may be good for using it in more embedded environment where GPIO/I²C/I²S/SPI/UART matter — expansion connector provides those signals.

But I would rather buy BeagleBone to play with peripherials connected to such pins. Someone may ask “why? it is more expensive”. Reason is simple — it is in production, already has expansions which adds things like video output, touchscreens. And it has ARMv7 cpu which allows me to run any ARM distribution available today — so Debian ‘armel/armhf’, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Ångström (which is preinstalled with great IDE to play with device already) or anything other.

I do not need small device which can run XMBC or Quake — have private PandaBoard which can do that too and has few things more than Raspberry/Pi.

And I do not think that companies which do software should start working on <100USD hardware like article at Techblaze suggests.

This is meant to be an affordable platform for education purposes and experimenting. The sort of experimenting where if you let out the magic smoke from the all the chips on the board, you can afford to buy a second one (and maybe a third when you smoke your board a second time confirming what you did wrong the first time)

The first product from this non-profit organization is not aimed at production scale end-user devices…not by any means.

I think of it this way. The are bringing modern general purpose computer capability back to the realm of experimenters. Similar to how arduino has brought access to an affordable microcontroller platform to experimenters. The raspi is just another step along the evolutionary path of a larger maker culture. It doesn’t have to do everything a panda board can do. But if it makes the architecture of a general purpose computing system more understandable, and helps people make the leap from consumer to maker then its success. If if those people outgrow the capabilities of the model A and the model B raspi and move on to hacking the pandaboards or even their cellphones..then that is a wild success.

I hope that they will have success which they want/deserve. Idea is great (I played with PIC16F84 and Z80 during studies) and would be nice to get it done.

And yes, I know that it is not PandaBoard type of board — but I had to tell it to many people already. Some just do not get that having HDMI output and video decoding does not mean beefy media center like device ;D

Ok, then what do you suggest as a cheap alternative, to RaspberryPi, other than PandaBoard and other devices that go over 70-80 bucks?
I am looking for “something” that I can hook up to my TV and make kind of an Internet TV (Watch normal TV, but also play movies, music, surf the web). I know that I can connect it to my netbook, but I need something that I can leave just as a media player / web, maybe with a remote control.
Thanks

Didn’t thought of that. And it’s not that I wouldn’t spend so much, but after I took a look over the TV market, I found that differences between a TV with and one without an RJ45 connector is somewhere around 50-60 $ (maximum 100). Not to mention that most of them have an media player inside them already, even not that powerfull. For a while I was looking for a Sony LED fullhd tv (KDL520 something…), but now I was thinking that maybe I can still use my old TV in tandem with an stand alone media player that has a web browser.

So just to read the news on the internet in the morning on the TV in the morning, listen to music during the day and play a movie in the evening, I want to found a black box to connect it to my TV. And now that you’ve told me I saw that I was about to make the same mistake as others from the R/Pi forums, that believe they can transform theyr TV into a “Smart TV” :)

I have my Raspberry from 1 week ago and I like it a lot as a small server!
There’s an important point: The Raspberry uses just 3,5 V, this is awesome for me, because for 3,5V + 9V (Rasp + Router) I have my own home server with Raspbian (debian derivate).
And yes, the performance as server is great (for me).
Best regards.

Many are using the raspberry pi as a media center player because the alternatives are expensive or crippled. I have a low power intel CPU with a dedicated low power/low profile video card with HDMI as my HTPC. It works well but a bit expensive as I use SSD for a faster startup. Its also about the size of the xbox.

I dont want to use dedicated media players because it usually have problems playing HD content or those with subtitiles. Many are also not capable of connecting to your media server.

The raspberry pi is the perfect alternative to the HTPC because of the cost and size. If I havent already setup my HTPC then i’ll be using it. One advantage of my HTPC is the better display quality which is not really that noticeable when playing movies.